TRENTON — The shuttered auditorium may be reopened in the next few months after $40,200 in repairs are completed, a district official said tonight, starting with the installation of an I beam to stabilize the cracked floor.

The Trenton school board tonight approved a contract with Ricasoli & Santin Contracting Co. to fund repairs to the floor of the auditorium, where a crack in the concrete slab was discovered while district maintenance employees were renovating the room this summer. District officials shuttered the auditorium when the crack was discovered, out of concern that it was unsafe to use.

An engineer surveyed the floor and devised a plan to place an I-beam beneath the floor to support it in the area of the crack, said Everett Collins, the district’s executive administrator of buildings and grounds, told the board at its meeting.

Collins said Ricasoli & Santin is applying for permits from the city, but he said he expects construction could begin as early as the end of this week. He said it could take several weeks before the large beam is in place; contractors are still struggling to figure out how to bring the large steel beam into the building and into the space below the auditorium floor, which is only accessible by a rounded staircase.

“We are looking at all of our options,” Collins said.

Collins said the crews have considered bringing in the beam in pieces and putting it together inside the building, but said it would have to be recertified once it is assembled. Another option would be to hoist the beam into the courtyard of the school and cut a hole in the wall to bring the beam inside.

Once the beam is in place and supported by several columns, Collins said, maintenance crews can continue their renovations of the auditorium. The floor will be refinished and new seats, which have been purchased and are in storage at the school, can be installed.

Collins said this is just the latest example of work that has had to be completed by the district’s maintenance department, rather than the state Schools Development Authority, which funds school repairs and building projects in poor districts like Trenton.

The 80-year-old school has a long list of needed repairs, including a leaky roof, asbestos, and rusting pipes that have been known to burst in the walls, causing mold, mildew, and warped floors.

Jada Bailey, a junior at Trenton Central High School who spoke at the meeting, said she is mad that she has to go to school every day in such horrible conditions and the state has done nothing to fix it.

“Can I get an education in a building that is falling apart?” she asked.

Bailey said she was upset when Gov. Chris Christie said in a press conference that he would not visit the school to see the conditions himself.

“I would like Governor Christie to come see what it is like to attend my high school,” Bailey said. “Everyone has their own opinions about Trenton Central High School, but to me those are the people who’ve never been there.”

Christie, during a press conference last week, said the SDA is in charge of evaluating the need for repairs to the school and he sees no need in visiting at this time.

The SDA has said it would fund up to $27 million in repairs to the school in the next few years. SDA contractors are currently evaluating the school as part of the “pre-design” phase of the project, where they say they will identify the building’s issues. The SDA has said construction could begin on the exterior of the school next summer. The interior projects would begin in the summer of 2015, according to the SDA’s schedule.

But Collins said the SDA is doing too little, too late.

“A blind man could see what is wrong with the building,” Collins said. “But every day they are in the school walking the hallways.”

Collins said because they cannot let the building go unrepaired, it falls to his department to make the fixes.

“I’ve got some beautiful plans for a new school sitting in the basement of the building,” Collins said. “My concern is — What is the SDA doing?”